Carolina Hurricanes: Rod Brind’Amour enters the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame
The Carolina Hurricanes added one of their most important players to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame Thursday Night.
Ten years after the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup that achievement still seems to resonate with us. This time it was the induction of Rod Brind’Amour into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame with eight others that brought back the memory of the only professional championship from the big four leagues to be won in the state.
Brind’Amour has been with us now since 1999. He has been a Hurricanes player or coach ever since. His second and current wife is Amy Biedenbach, the daughter of former UNC Asheville coach Eddie. Brind’Amour is immersed in the state in a way few Canadians can claim. He remains the only former captain of a pro championship team.
Brind’Amour, like many hockey stars, seemed to play forever. He started his career for the St. Louis Blues in the late eighties. I first became aware of him in NHL ’96 for the PC. If you were playing against the Philadelphia Flyers, Eric Lindros had a propensity to get into fights in the game. The game would then substitute Brind’Amour into the first line. It was not a step down.
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He was traded to the Hurricanes in 1999 for star right winger Keith Primeau. The Flyers needed offense but the Hurricanes needed grit and Brind’Amour made his reputation as a defensive forward. He won the Selke Trophy (Best Defensive Forward) in 2005-6 and 2006-7.
The construction of two solid lines pushed the Hurricanes into rarefied air in the 2005-6 season. The young Eric Staal had arrived and the team won the Stanley Cup, the only one that Brind’Amour would win. He would continue to contribute until injury sidelined in 2009 and he decided to retire a year later.
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The years that Brind’Amour won the Selke Trophy were also his best years in the scoring column. He scored 152 points between the two seasons. His jersey was the third retired jersey for the Hurricanes franchise behind Glen Wesley and Ron Francis.
He is a neat player whose style of play was not likely to get headlines but still made him a force in the league. His inclusion in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame is well deserved.